


neutrino (oscillate)

by spacegirlkj



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mutual Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 06:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14254986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegirlkj/pseuds/spacegirlkj
Summary: He’s eleven. Hunting aliens as a pastime, bandaids on his knees.He’s eighteen, staring at the stars he’ll never visit and wondering if he isolates himself enough, if he’ll feel the neutrinos they send off.





	neutrino (oscillate)

**Author's Note:**

> SO basically i posted this 2 years ago for another pairing but i took it down and rewrote it for oihina bcuz. hey why not  
> anyways this is based very much on real life experiences and such so... yeah? happy oihina week!

_A neutrino is a lepton that interacts only via the weak subatomic force and gravity. Its rest mass is so small that it was originally thought to be zero. Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected._

 

Oikawa is lying on his back, staring at the stick on stars littered across his ceiling. They're glowing, a faint green hum of radioactive green sticking out in the moonlit room. There's a poster on the slanted wall, reading _I want to believe_. Oikawa sighs. He wants to believe, too. 

Neutrinos have three different flavours, and the verification of this proved that they have mass. Does he have mass? Oikawa wonders that often. Neutrinos pass through your body, billions of trillions of times throughout your life, and yet you never feel them.

Oikawa huffs out a sigh. Stupid neutrinos, thinking they’re cool because they're interesting and you can't feel them. His feelings do that all the time, pass right through him as if they don't exist. Are they considered a feeling if you don't feel them? Oikawa looks over at the digital clock on his bedside table. It reads 3:06am. He figures they don't. 

It happens a lot, when he doesn't notice it. 

Numbness is when the emotions start acting like neutrinos, when you stop feeling, at least, that's what he figures. His heart doesn't feel anything except for a low and deep ache that seems semi permanent. His heart isn't supposed to do that. It does it anyways. 

But numbness isn't unfeeling. Oikawa is cutting up broccoli for dinner, and he isn't paying attention. The knife slips down and slits the bottom of his palm, where his thumb connects to his wrist. he doesn't wince, despite the obvious pain. His blood drips onto the cutting board, splattering onto his food. He cups his hand with his other and walks over to the bathroom to find bandages. 

His hands are plenty bloody now, and they leave red marks where the blood trickles off of his wrist and onto the floor. He finds the bandages and coils his hand in them, forgetting to wipe the blood off. He's more focused- or rather, not focused at all - on the fact that it was pooling. 

His phone goes off from his pocket, he ignores it at first. It continues, the buzzing noise cutting off before it can finish as the texts arrive. It's annoying, like two clocks not in sync. Oikawa answers, swiping across the screen. Blood smears on where his finger trailed. 

**_shouchan:_ **

_there's a coffee house that opened downtown!!!!!! local musicians are playing tonight, the bassist looks really good. wanna come? yamagucchi said to invite you_

**_oikawa✌:_ **

_ill pass :(( I've got school work…._

Oikawa kicks his phone into his room, it's skidding slows on his carpeting floor. He knows he shouldn't lie to Hinata like that, but he can't seem to find the will to let him know he's okay. 

Maybe he just wants to tell the truth. 

_That's cheap,_ he thinks. He lies all of the time. Impulsively. 

He collapses onto his bed yet again, and this time, he tries to feel the neutrinos pass through him. He doesn't.

 

***

 

On Monday, his tongue feels heavy. He snaps at Matsukawa four times by the time homeroom had started. Hanamaki snickers, but Oikawa simply glares in his direction, and it's enough to make his face  drop. 

The boy in font of him, Kailou, snickers away, mocking as Oikawa brooded. 

"Look at me," he snickers, pushing up his nose with a finger. "I'm on my period, boo hoo.”

"Ignore him." Hanamaki says. 

Kailou rolls his eyes, turns back and kicks his feet up. He taps his fingers against the desk, the sound drumming into OIkawa’s ears. It's annoying, he’s annoying, and before he can help it, the venom brewing in his mouth is spit onto him.

“Normally I’d ignore your sorry ass, but something tells me you compensate for your lacklustre personality and asshole tendencies by being an annoying piece of shit.” He spits, kicking kailou’s chair. “Did your girlfriend leave you because your dick is inferior to a tic tac, or because you jack off to the history teacher’s lessons?”

Most of the class had turned to face them, faces awestruck as they began to whisper. Oikawa is venomous when the numbness fades, as if the first feeling he can sense is disgust. Iwaizumi seems to be restraining himself from punching Kailou, mattsun breathing deeply, and hanamaki, looking over to Oikawa as he shakes his head. 

"That's harsh, even for you." Hanamaki says. Iwaizumi and Matsukawa are silent. They all understand why he snapped, but the explanation hardly serves as a justification when they spot the girls beginning to gang up on kailou.

Oikawa shrugs. It's sadistic, the way he enjoys watching Kailou flush furiously before attempting to hook him in the jaw. Oikawa leans away from his fist, and Iwaizumi grabs it, and by then, he's intimidated enough to stop. 

 

***

 

Oikawa picks Hinata up from practice to walk him home, because they haven’t seen each other in a week and Hinata has sent him too many _I miss you!_ texts for Oikawa to not feel guilty. Hinata is sunshine and brightness and warmth bubbling inside of him but today, he’s afraid that Hinata will see right through him. It’s too quiet as he pushes his bike along, Oikawa at his side. The entire time, Oikawa tries not to trip over the stones littering the side of the road. _Stupid cars, throwing pebbles on pathways,_ Hinata says. Oikawa doesn't care. He shrugs and hums as an answer, drags his toes in the gravel as they make their way to Hinata’s house.The stars twinkle over head and Hinata isn’t talking much. Oikawa wants to scratch at his skin, but his button down is light and Hinata’s eyes open black holes in his head. They’re just in front of Hinata’s house when he finally speaks up.

“Are— are you okay?” Hinata asks, motioning to the bandage on Oikawa’s hand. 

"A nick from making dinner," Oikawa replies, waving him off "It doesn't matter. Bandage will come off before practice.”

Hinata frowns before grabbing his arm, bike clattering to the concrete. Despite his half hearted protests, Hinata pushes up the sleeve of his shirt, running his thumb over the smooth, untarnished skin that lay underneath it. Oikawa stammers, and tries to keep himself from blushing as Hinata repeats the action on his right arm, before dropping it to his side and engulfing him in a hug. 

And the numbness seems to throb into something else, because in that moment Oikawa feels everything, he feels the hands on his back, the hair on his collarbone, the dull ache of adoration in his chest and bittersweet happiness boiling into nostalgia and he can feel the neutrinos in all their flavours passing through him and Hinata as they hug. 

Hinata notices that he’ s shaking and ushers him inside with a half stuttered _do you want to spend the night?_ Oikawa nods— this isn’t the first time, because ever since that practice match back in April they've revolved around each other in rivalry, friendhsip, and now this. As soon as he’s inside Oikawa rushes into a toilet stall, and slams the door before Hinata can look him in the eye. He can hear Hinata speaking through the door, worrying but he doesn't listen, instead, pressing his head to the porclien and wincing as bile rises from his throat. 

He exits the bathroom, shaky legged, and gives Hinata and all his worried wrinkles a half hearted smile. 

“I guess I didn’t know how bad I was feeling,” he laughs, and Hinata stops his worrying enough to soften. 

“Do you want me to make you soup? Or do you just want to sleep? Were you practicing too late— oh god, i shouldn’t’ve made you walk so far if you were exhausted—” 

“Soup sounds nice,” Oikawa tells him, lifting the corners of his mouth enough to call it a smile and pause Hinata’s rambling. Hinata looks him in the eye, all truth and vunreblilty, and nods, heading towards his kitchen. His mom and Natsu are probably asleep upstairs, and come morning Oikawa will charm them both because they share the same charm that Hinata delivers.

Oikawa doesn't feel like speaking as he heads for Hinata’s room, and his heart aches with every step he takes. He can feel his skin crawl and shiver around his neck and jaw, and the tips of his fingers. He opens the door, and breaths softly at the familiarity, heart panging in a way that makes his world spin. 

(Is that from the neutrinos? He isn’t sure, if you’re not supposed to feel them in the first place.)

He slumps down onto the floor, sitting at the foot of his bed, toeing a shirt lying on the floor. Hinata’s room is much nicer than his, covered in shirts that aren’t his from the few hastily taken one-night-stands he’s fallen into the habit of finding. It soothes him like alcohol does, shares the same burn and the same horrible aftertaste and the same notion that healing is a punishment. He sinks his head back into the mattress. Alcohol sounds like a good idea at the moment, more specifically, shitty vodka and a bottle of rosé his mom won’t notice him taking.

And Oikawa, unbeknownst to the ginger standing outside his room with soup, screams at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking as sobs began to rake through his body. With every inhale, he shakes, his bandaged fingers and hand sporting tremors as he brings them to cradle his face. His brows furrows as he locks his eyes on his sock feet, rocking slightly, his fingernails digging into his face, desperate to feel something other than the ache in his chest, to feel the neutrinos in all their flavours pass through his skin.

Hinata sets the soup onto the floor, and crawls his way to Oikawa, prying his shaking hands from his face. His nails didn't break skin, but half moon crescents litter his cheeks, indentations marking his otherwise flawless skin. Oikawa’s breath hitches as he sniffles, his nose already running. God, he is an ugly crier.

Hinata maintains eye contact, moving his hand to lower Oikawa’s legs from his chest, lip worried between his teeth, eyes sloping with concern. His other palm is pressed against Oikawa’s cheek, thumb drawing circles on his under eye, wiping the tears that are flowing in thick streams down his cheeks. He is cooing, shushing Oikawa’s sobs as he crawls closer, sitting on Oikawa’s thighs and pressing his forehead against the taller’s.

Oikawa controls his sobs enough that the tears stop flowing, enough that his breathing is salty and shallow, occasionally hitching and catching in his chest. Hinata’s arms are solid and warm around him, under his armpit, and around his waist. The pressure is enough that he can be grounded by the touch, the warmth, spreading through his veins.

When he comes back to his senses is when he begins to panic. He is weak, so, _so_ weak. He is sitting there, dry sobbing in Hinata’s arms. Hinata, who isn’t supposed to see him like this, Hinata, who holds the sun and all her neutrinos in her smile, Hinata, who listens to his worries as if they were gospel, who let him warm his toes against his boiling skin, Hinata, who teaches him how to breathe again. And Oikawa cries because he didn't deserve all that Hinata gave him, he didn't deserve to be loved in such a tender way after ignoring him, after bitching and saying things that were just plain mean.

“I am a terrible person,” Oikawa chokes into Hinata shoulder, clutching onto his biceps.

“No, you aren’t,” Hinata says, rubbing his back.

Oikawa laughs, bitter, cool, before pulling back to look Hinata in the eye. “Shouyou,” he says. He is smiling, sadly. “I _hurt_ people. I hurt you, I destroy everything I touch.”

“Just because you sometimes are mean-” Hinata starts, but he is cut off by Oikawa’s bitter laughter.

“Let me guess, it doesn't mean that i’m a bad person?” he spits. “I don’t want to burden you with my mess of a life. You don’t have to say some sort of bullshit to inflate my ego you always complain about, so just leave me be.”

Hinata looks at him, and glowers. “You don’t get to decide that,” he says, and stands, grabbing the soup that he left on the floor. It’s still plenty warm, and he places it in Oikawa’s still shaking hands. “You’re right, you’re mean, you’re rude, you’re petty, but you’re also kind, and loyal, and caring, and you _feel_ with every fibre of your being. Now eat your soup.”

Hinata sounds angry, but he chokes slightly on his words. Oikawa swallows the lump in his throat, and apologies spill from his lips as he grabs the spoon and brings the broth to his lips.

Something swells in Oikawa’s chest again. He looks up at Hinata, hoping it will disappear, but it only strengthens. 

***

He used to thrive off his anxiety, his high functioning, compulsive manner. But with very few things to use as a distraction, something else takes over. And yet here he was, slamming serve after serve onto the court in a vicious attempt to rid himself from the ache in his bones.

Spin, thrown, jump, hit, evaluate, repeat. Sweat dripped down his forehead as the familiar rhythm soothed the squeezing in his chest, the flutter in his stomach. His acceptance letter came in, apparently, the scouts think he’s good enough for one of Tokyo’s best schools, with a fantastic volleyball team in need of “someone like Oikawa”.

Oikawa wipes the sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt, and grabs another ball from the bin. 

He can’t comprehend it, really. He knows he’s good, but there are better, stronger, simply because they were born that way. His mind goes to Kageyama, to royal blue and third year of middle school. The ball hits the ground with ferocity that startles Oikawa, landing inside the boundaries of the court. He sighs, grabbing a ball and spinning it. He needs to get better, be better.

He practices his float serves. He’s decent, but decent doesn't get you to nationals, doesn't get you to the worldwide stage. Hell, even above average doesn't get you there. Oikawa becomes numb to the ache from practice, the ache from thinking, the ache fromlosing, the ache from a chemical imbalance and the ache from being in love.

That night, he lets himself curl under his blankets and watch the digital clock at his beside table. He sings every song he knows, traces his forearm with his fingertip in attempt to fall asleep and forget the pain he feels throbbing inside of him. He can’t feel the neutrinos, or his fan. All he can feel is the hole that is ripped in his chest.

***

Sex is about as good as a coping method as alcohol. It’s messy, half the time he’s drunk and it sucks, and even when it does feel somewhat good, he burns later on. Hence, why he rarely chooses it over lying alone at night or drinking himself stupid.

Oikawa doesn't care right now, though. He sneaks into college parties like these for that reason, to be taken advantage of.

Maybe it’s guilt that swells in his throat as the boy, he forgets his name, pins him against the wall and kisses him. He feels gross, his hair is disheveled, his face oily, and the bathroom they frantically locked themselves in is suffocatingly small and smells of bleach. The boy’s fingers press painfully into his hips, hard enough to leave bruises, and Oikawa lets out a small cry, squeezing his eyes shut and wrapping his leg around the boy’s waist. He doesn't mind the pain, but it’s not what he wants, really.

It’s an annoyingly slow process, one where Oikawa writhes, the boy pressing into him without caring about his comfort. He huffs, blows his bangs from his forehead, and tries to angle his body so that it’s better for him, but the angle gives him little leeway or room to move.

The boy comes first, burying his face into Oikawa’s chest. Oikawa’s a few centimetres taller, but he still slips forward when he pulls out and discards of the condom. Oikawa stumbles, slightly drunk, and annoyed that the boy has already pulled up his jeans and left, a simple _Thank you, baby,_ all that leaves his lips as he opens the door and shuts it behind him.

Oikawa groans, locking the door as he slumps to the floor, hissing at the burn. He feels around for his clothes, not bothering to finish himself off as his arousal fades with every second spent in the bathroom that smelt too much like bleach for his liking. When he stands, pulling himself up off the ground, he stares at his reflection in the stark bathroom lighting. His face is shiny with oil, his under eyes a sickly shade of purple. He groans, rubbing his face with his hands, grimacing at the sweat layered over his body. The dull ache in his chest makes itself known again, and Oikawa really wishes that the sun would go supernova right about now.

He takes a deep breath, trying to feel the neutrinos and something other than the sadness that threatened to cloak him and the burn in his ass. 

His skin feels sticky, and the booze and bleach make him dizzy. Oikawa fixes his glasses, which are now slipping off of his sweat slick nose and are covered in smudges, and leaves the bathroom into the dimly lit hall.

He ducks out of the party quickly, snatching a bottle of half empty vodka from the counter top and taking a swing as he exits onto the street. 

It’s cold, winter already taking its hold on the dwindling number of days left of fall. The chill of the night bites into him, the moon casting a silvery glow onto the street. The stars twinkle above him, and Oikawa takes another sip from the bottle, stumbling over the curb as he heads in the direction of his house. He’ll have to maneuver through the suburbs, then into the older parts of the neighbourhood where the cozier homes are, but his mind is drunk enough that this is the best possible plan. He takes another sip. Fucking neutrinos.

Oikawa makes his way to his room, toeing off his shoes and attempting to walk in a straight line, without bumping into the railing. He trips on the top stair to his attic bedroom, holding his breath as the steep staircase creaked. He darted into his room, closing the hatch and stumbling forwards. 

The next morning, in a hungover daze, he noted the bruises littering his hips and the dull ache all over. Some part of him tells him he’s cheating on the idea love blooming in his chest, that his adoration for Hinata shouldn’t be choked by the vines of coping with alcohol and one night stands. He’s throwing too much away by slipping into the embrace of poison, and vows that he’ll at least leave the feeling of being used behind, that he won’t find god or healing in parties he wasn’t invited to.

 

***

 

By rule of thumb, Oikawa doesn't like to drink around Hinata. 

But Hinata is ten times as perceptive as perceptive as he seems, and Oikawa knows he _knows_ about all that goes on with him.

And so, Hinata reasons, if he was going to drink, he would do it with him.

Everything is fuzzy. Oikawa smiles, leans back onto his hands and looks up at the stars. The pair are sat on OIkawa’s roof, a bottle of rosé nestled between their knees. They’re buzzed, not drunk: Hinata made sure to water the wine down with sparkling water before he came, nine parts bubbles that only add to the spinning sensation in Oikawa’s chest.

Oikawa feels nostalgic. It’s an odd feeling, one that brings happiness with the bittersweet aftertaste of sorrow, of realizing this was the last time they’d sit on his roof while drinking watered down wine and talking about the constellations. Oikawa wonders if there’s a supernova happening somewhere, because the buzz in his veins intensifies as he sighs through his nose and wiggles his bare toes. 

_Maybe this is the neutrinos_ , He thinks, glancing over to Hinata. His hair is ruffled, a genuine smile on his face as he gazes up at the stars with childish contempt. He’s not dressed up, wearing a sweatshirt and track pants, but Oikawa finds his eyes tracing over his jaw, his neck, the exposed collarbone, before tearing his eyes away. 

No, he realizes, reaching for the bottle. The neutrinos aren’t this. Neutrinos are illusive, they are sly, they do not hurt others, they don’t drag them onto rooftops and make you drink rosé and look for aliens.

Oikawa scratches at the scar on his wrist. Habit. He lets himself be selfish, looks back over to Hinata. 

_He is so beautiful,_ Oikawa thinks.

_I am in love with him,_ Oikawa realizes.

He can feel the neutrinos, trillions per minute. They rush through his veins, and he mutters, _no, this isn’t happening,_ because it can’t. They’re going to different schools, he is mean, Hinata is just a friend, just a friend, just a friend.

“I’m in love with you,” Oikawa whispers, looking Hinata, who has turned to face him, in the eye.

Hinata tenses, and then relaxes. He parts his lips, runs a hand through his hair, and laughs. Oh my, what a beautiful laugh.

“Oh, I thought- I didn’t think - just, oh my god.” he says, looking up at the stars again, an ear to ear smile on his face, nighttime hiding the blush that spreads over his cheeks. “I love you too.”

And in that moment, two things happen:

Oikawa leans towards Hinata, kisses him so softly he would almost think he wasn’t there, slides a hand across his cheek and another down his back holds him tight as the moon casts a glow over them.

And Oikawa’s heart drops into his stomach.

 

***

 

Hinata worries. Oikawa is still Oikawa, meaning, he still lies in bed at night and thinks about how it’d be nice if aliens take him away to another planet. He thinks, it’d be so much nicer if Hinata and him lived in a perfect world where he wasn’t fucked in the head, where he didn't bitch and snap and manipulate and cry and demand attention.

They kiss a lot. Oikawa tries to be gentle, he really does, but it isn’t in his nature. HInata returns the favour, sometimes. Other times, he coaxes Oikawa into relaxing onto the spring shot couch, and runs a hand over his stomach, kisses his neck and sleeps on his chest. It’s amazing, but Oikawa is panicking, because they were supposed to talk today. 

Hinata has said nothing.

He wants to bring it up, but theres a peculiar ache in his stomach that makes him want to throw up onto the hardwood floor. He knows that when he leaves, the numbness will overtake him. He doesn't want to leave. He isn’t sure if he can feel neutrinos running through him, or if that’s the pain.

 

***

 

They don’t talk. Not about that, at least.

Oikawa lies. He lies, and he lies. Hinata looks heartbroken every time he slices his stomach and spills his secrets, talks about how sometimes, he’ll scratch at his legs until he draws blood because numbness likes to encase his heart. Hinata bounces his leg. Oikawa makes him nervous.

He is mean, he is impulsive. He says scary things, Hinata loves him, and he has to watch Oikawa unravel under him, a crying, sobbing mess.

So Oikawa pulls away. He hides under the covers, he doesn't answer his phone, he ends their kisses short. He can’t, he won’t be the reason Hinata worries. He doesn't deserve that.

Oikawa’s phone buzzes. He is sitting in his bed, trying not to cry for no reason. He picks it up, staring at the message displayed on the screen.

**_shouyou <3:_ **

_hey, tooru?_

_can we talk? maybe?_

And Oikawa looses it. He looses every shred of pride he used to hold so dearly and sobs into his sheets, because he knows what’s coming. Hinata, who he loves with all his heart, whose smiles are the most beautiful thing on the planet, who makes him feel something spark in the pit of his stomach even when he can’t seem to feel anything at all.

And Oikawa makes his way over to Hinata’s house, sees him sitting on his front lawn in the grass that needs to be cut, and he sits down next to him. He aches, and he tenses his jaw, and waits for what he knows is coming.

“I can’t do this. Not like this,” Hinata chokes out.

“Shouyou-”

“No,” Hinata says, voice cracking. “Tooru, you aren't okay. You’re sick, you need to see a doctor. I love you, but I spend every waking moment worrying that you might slip up and end up dead. Oikawa, please, I want to help you.”

And Oikawa smiles, bitter, a tear sliding down his cheek because, yes, this is what he expected.

“It’s all my fault. You can’t love me, can you?” he says, turning to look at Hinata, eyes now welled with tears.

“No! No, that’s not what I meant!” Hinata says, watching as Oikawa stands. He follows in suit, grabbing onto his forearm. “I meant, I can’t be with you like _this_ , not until you get help. Tooru, I want to, I really, _really_ love you, but I’m afraid that I’m—”

Oikawa rips his arm from Hinata’s grip, tears streaming down his face. And he bolts, because he is so, so afraid too.

Neutrinos were thought to have no mass, to be so slight that they hold no weight in a world full of matter that can be pulled into the deep reaches of black nothingness. When they were proved to have three flavours, this led to the fact of neutrinos sustaining a mass smaller than any other known elementary particle.

And if neutrinos, who are not effected by electromagnetism, who interact via gravity and weak subatomic force, who are created through decaying radioactive material and dying stars, if they have mass and can exist, can pass through you billions and billions per second without you feeling, doesn’t that mean that he can do the same? That he can explode with a flash of light and create bits of himself worth keepings, particles that no one properly notices already? Can he oscillate between personalities, can he become so slight that the only thing that he tethers to is gravity? 

He loves Hinata. He loves him with everything he is, but he can’t. He can’t sit in a small white office and tell a woman with slicked back hair and a clipboard how his heart constricts overtime he tries to do something, how he scratches at his skin and breaks glass and how he drinks cheap liquor, all in attempt to feel neutrinos, to feel the thing that escaped him before he even had a name for it.

_I spend every waking moment worrying that you might slip up and end up dead._

_I can’t love you-_

_dead-_

Oikawa doubles over, in the middle of a deserted street somewhere in his neighbourhood, crying as he listens for footsteps behind him.

He can’t hear anything. He can’t even hear his own heart as it beats, or his own breaths as they leave his lips. 

Hinata doesn’t let Oikawa get very far though. He wraps his arms around his shoulders and kisses his cheek and holds him steady. Somehow, Oikawa expected to be left there, to never move from the frozen asphalt again. Hinata has other ideas, has always had a mind that pushes for _more_ , helps Oikawa off the ground and walks him back indoors. They make their way up the stairs, and Hinata makes sure Oikawa doesn’t bump into the walls or trip over his own feet despite being a head shorter. When they finally collapse onto Oikawa’s bed, Hinata an anchor pressing into his chest

“You know I’m not leaving,” Hinata mumbles into Oikawa’s neck. “And I’m not gonna stop loving you.”

Oikawa stays there, with his hands reaching to comb through Hinata’s hair. His heart is heavy and there are silent tears working their ways down his cheeks. but he can breathe for once in his life— he can _breathe._

“Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll… do something. I don;t know what, but—”

“Baby steps,” Hinata tells him, looking up to meet his eyes. 

Oikawa sighs, pushing a stray strand of hair from Hinata’s forehead. His skin glows even in the darkness of the night. “It’s too much,” he tells him. _“Everything_ is too much.”

“Just let it pass through you,” Hinata says, and his eyes are real and wide and determined in the same way he seems to be when he plays. “And keep going.”

_Let it pass through you,_ Oikawa thinks.

He closes his eyes, and leans back.

And the neutrinos pass right through.

**Author's Note:**

> you made it to the end! thank you for reading. if you kudos or comment a dog will deliver some love to your home on my behalf!
> 
> find me on tumblr at lesbianoikawa and twitter @spacegaykj !


End file.
